In his first major speech, in October 2005, the one that gained him notoriety, Ahmadinejad declared that the Zionist regime in Israel “must be eliminated from the pages of history.” Many will recall this quote. But only very few people have read the rest of the speech and so understood the context of the threat. Let me please quote just three more sentences of this famous talk.In it, Ahmadinejad said: “We are in the process of a historical war between the World of Arrogance and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years.”

So as we can see, the roots of this “historical war” have nothing to do with Israel or the Middle East conflict. The speaker views the destruction of Israel as a stage in a war that started long before the foundation of Israel. But what is meant by “World of Arrogance”? I will come back to this point.

He also said: “We have to understand the depth of the disgrace of the enemy, until our holy hatred expands continuously and strikes like a wave.” Here a religiously inspired feeling of superiority is contrasted with the “depth of the disgrace of the enemy”. But the notion of a “holy hatred” is also striking. This hatred is unconditional: it cannot be moderated through any kind of Western or Jewish behavior. It currently expresses itself in the first instance as hatred of a recalcitrant and rather pro-Western Iranian people that has to be silenced through stonings, public executions, mass arrests, torture and censorship. Above and beyond this, the expression of this “holy hatred” is destined to “expand continuously” to a global level and to overwhelm the world like a mighty tsunami.

Third and final quotation from the speech: “In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness. They ask: ‘Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?’ But you had best know that this goal is attainable, and surely can be achieved.”

Imagine if the leader of a medium-sized Western country, for example Mr Berlusconi, the former Italian head of government, had made a speech in which he talked about a historical war against the Islamic world, denounced the “depth of the Islamic world’s disgrace”, summoned up Christianity’s “holy hatred” of Islam and finally pronounced the goal of erasing Saudi Arabia and Pakistan from the map realizable.

The entire talk is wonderfully argued. Read it all. I will only extract a few more ideas from it for reference, and to convey the four key characteristics of this Iranian Holy War against the world, which should be differentiated from the less dangerous but no-less objectionable Salafist/Al-Qaeda Holy War against the world.

The world beyond is more important than this one

During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, the semi-official Iranian daily Ettela’at wrote the following:

In the past, we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes could henceforth be avoided, Ettela’at assured its readers. “Before entering the mine fields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”[2]

The children who thus rolled to their deaths formed part of the mass Basij movement that was called into being by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. They consisted of short-term volunteer militias and represented about 30 percent of the personnel on the battlefield. Most Basij members were between 12 and 18 years young. They went enthusiastically and by their thousands to their own destruction.

[…]

“The natural world,” Khomeini explained in October 1980, “is the lowest element, the scum of creation.” What is decisive is the beyond: the “divine world – that is eternal.”[4] According to Khomeini’s mindset, the martyrs’ death is nothing but the transition from this world to the world beyond, where they will live on eternally and in splendor.

Before Khomeini, for a Muslim deliberately to be sent to certain death was considered sacrilege within Islam.

[…]

Reason as sin

The second characteristic of the holy war relates to Islamist epistemology. I must admit that it took me a long time to understand this aspect. For us, the employment of reason is the most self-evident thing in the world. For Islamists the use of reason – apart from in the natural sciences – is an expression of arrogance – hence our castigation as the “World of Arrogance” – and an offence against God. Their starting point is that the Koran must be interpreted and applied literally. But evidently, any kind of reason-based doubt undermines such an approach to the Koran. As a result, doubt and conjecture are opposed.

[…]

Revolutionary mission

It is the Iranian leadership’s special sense of mission that propels them along the course toward confrontation with the West. “Our nation’s important mission” Ahmadinejad enthused only some days ago, “is to introduce the Islamic Revolution to the whole of mankind.”

[…]

Liberation through annihilation

The Iranian leaders do not at all regard themselves as antisemites.

“We are friends with the Jewish people”, stated Ahmadinejad in Columbia. Moreover, the 25,000 or so Jews in Iran represent the largest Jewish community in any Muslim country.

Nonetheless, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is steeped in an antisemitism not found in any state leader since World War II.

Ahmadinejad does not say “Jews” are conspiring to rule the world. Instead he says, “Two thousand Zionists want to rule the world.” Instead he says, “The Zionists” have for 60 years now blackmailed “all Western governments.” “The Zionists have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural, and media sectors.” “The Zionists” fabricated the Danish Muhammad cartoons. “The Zionists thrive on war and hatred,” Ahmadinejad claims. “Everywhere they exist there is war.”[18] The pattern is familiar. He invests the word “Zionist” with exactly the same meaning Hitler poured into “Jew”: the incarnation of evil. Anyone who makes Jews – whether as “Judas” or as “Zionist” – responsible for all the ills of the world is obviously driven by antisemitism. He must want to eliminate Israel, as the “germ of evil”, in order to save the world. He must deny the truth of the Holocaust in order to pave the way for his “truth”. The demonization of Jews, Holocaust denial, and the will to eliminate Israel – these are the three elements of an ideological constellation that collapses as soon as one of the elements is removed.

[…]

“The extermination of Jewry throughout the world”, declared a Nazi directive from 1943, is “the precondition for an enduring peace.”[20] Liberation through annihilation. This is similar to the mission that Islamism has set out upon whose first target is Israel. As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put it, “The Zionist regime will be wiped out and humanity will be liberated.”[21]

He reiterated this belief in his most recent speech at the United Nations in September 2007: “The age of darkness will end”, he enthused to the General Assembly and “the peoples in Europe and America will be liberated from the burdens the Zionists have inflicted on them”.

So let me now sum up on this final point: There are other dictatorships in the world. But only in Iran are the fantasy-worlds of antisemitism and religious mission linked with technological megalomania and the physics of mass destruction. The specific danger presented by the Iranian nuclear option stems from the unique ideological atmosphere surrounding it – a mixture of holy war and high-tec, of antisemitism and weapons-grade uranium, of death-wish and missile research, of Shiite messianism and plutonium.

Congratulations to Pakistan for carrying out a predominantly fair election and not falling prey to the temptation to let loose the dogs of political Jihad again!

Musharraf’s political party, the PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim League “Q”) lost seats, with the head of the party losing his seat in Pakistan’s Parliament, and the hardline Islamist/Jihadist MMA (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal) lost 91% of its seats (plummeting from 59 to 5). The totality of the MMA’s rout, even in the jihadist infested North West Frontier Province, was unexpected, and signals a turn away from Islamist politics toward a more local politics of potholes, post offices, and government jobs. Jihadist excesses and proliferation around the Lal Masjid and by al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the NWFP, the MMA association with Musharraf, and factional splintering that led to a voting boycott by Jamaat i-Islami, all bear some responsibility. [Telegraph India]

The MMA lost command of the NWFP, which it had controlled, to the liberal-secular Awami National Party (ANP) and the (Bhutto Family’s) Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). In the NWFP provincial assembly, Islamist and Jihadist parties won 67 seats out of 96 in 2002, and in 2008 they won 9. It will be interesting to see how Mehsud’s jihadists, who have showed no respect so far for Pakistan’s civil law, or its army for that matter, react to attempts by the ANP and PPP to reign them in.

To provide an anecdotal yet amusing answer to the question of whose election day went worse, the Islamists/Jihadists or the PML-Q, Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi, the head of the banned Jihadist group the Sipah-e-Sahaba, was defeated in Punjab by Sheik Waqas of the PML-Q. Clear loser: Islamist Jihadist vampires.

The Bhutto family’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League “N” (PML-N) were expected to do well. Both performed to expectations. [CTV]

No single party has a clear majority. It will be a coalition government.

There were 24 election-related deaths in Pakistan, mostly in the Punjab. Turnout was 35-40% of the 81 million eligible voters [Times of India]

The election was monitored and approved for fairness by international observers, though there were concerns about the threat of violent attacks suppressing turnout. Apparently the Pakistanis, being used to representative government, are not as brave about exercising their hard-won franchise as the Iraqis. [CTV]

In the aftermath of the elections, Musharraf and his allies made clear what has always been clear except to the confused media, who continually thought that the Parliamentary elections, ultimately determining the Prime Minister of Pakistan, would automatically expel Musharraf from his position as President. For example, the Daily Express gets it wrong.

PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf conceded defeat in the early stages of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections today. […]

Musharraf faces stiff competition from the two main opposition parties; the PPP led by the son of assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Both parties already have a clear majority in the presidential race.

Not presidential, Express. It’s the parliamentary race. Mushy is the President. Big difference. He can’t be defeated because his seat was not up for elections. He might be impeached, but that is a different story.

Finally, the retired Pakistani Air Marshall Masood Akhtar has requested American assistance with more modern COIN weapons to counter the al-Qaeda and Taliban’s insurgency against the Pakistani government. [The News of Pakistan]

Richard Landes has the scoop when it comes to Pallywood and Muslim media manipulation. Western media organizations depend on local, Muslim reporters for much of the street level reporting in Muslim countries, but these local reporters have a more lax attitude towards truth than western journalists might expect. One of the reasons is the Islamic Mass Media Charter, which makes clear that the role of journalism in the Islamic world is to propagandize for Islamist objectives.

In keeping with our belief in Allah and Allah’s Apostle; and in implementation of Islamic Shariah; and in complete awareness of the imminent dangers besetting the Muslim Ummah and impeding its religious reawakening and in appreciation of the important role of the various forms of Mass-Media and its worthy aims, integrity of the profession and its tradition and; conscious of the goals and aspirations of the Ummah, we workers in the Islamic Media who are now gathered here at the First International Islamic Mass-Media Conference, hereby endorse this charter for Islamic Media. We solemnly pledge to conform to it and regard it a torchlight for all our endeavours as well as a source of rights and obligations. Continue reading →

The following video is not safe for work. It is not safe to watch with children. It is not safe to watch if you are easily sickened or horrified. What it is, is a true documentary depiction of what it means for girls and women to be subjugated and oppressed by barbaric and abusive practices associated with Islamic imperialism.

Narrated by ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, its name is The Violent Oppression of Woman in Islam.

Ishmael Vera has the truth on who hates America. Judging by what they said about Horowitz they hate Jews too.

The protest, which will be called “American Fascism Awareness Day” is being organized by Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Students for Justice In Palestine, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee among others and will feature speakers such as congressman Dennis Kucinich and presidential candidate Ron Paul, anti-war activists Cindy Sheehan and Harry Karry and actor Sean Penn. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party, one of the sponsors of the event, “This is an answer to the Jew Horowitz and the neo-conservative Zionists who dragged us into an imperialist war in Iraq and are spreading hatred against Muslims to support their war plans against the Republic of Iran.” […]Many Americans contacted by Frontpagemag.com were outraged over the announced protest. Latisha Freeman, an African American student at one of the campuses that was flyered commented that all Americans were not racists and that the flyer was generally “unpatriotic and unfair.” American Legion commander K. “Ike” Landsman, was blunter. “These are communist ingrates who don’t appreciate this great country and they ought to be deported to Iran or Afghanistan where they would be welcome.” Fox News Channel anchor Alan Colmes, had a different take. “Lighten up,” Colmes said when he was shown the flyer; “this is a parody of views that liberals actually have. No one should get upset. This is just free speech in action.”

Is this straightforward declaration of hatred towards all Americans the kind of thing that would count as criminal hate speech under a hate speech code? If not, why not?

No surprise here. The way to learn about American Fascists is from the biggest fascists of all, neocommunists, islamists, and other assorted leftists. They don’t believe in free thought or speech. Even log-cabin conservative Andrew Sullivan agrees. With these leftist thought police and their thugs, it’s all about maintaining ideological uniformity, and rabble rousing over the enemy du jour, which has been George W. Bush since he defeated Al Gore in the 2000 elections.

The people who are appearing at this fascist and neocommunist convention most likely do not know with whom they are associating. I doubt that Ron Paul realizes he has been recruited to speak in front of a neocommunist rabble about how he hates Americans. Even the leftist kook Kucinich would probably be surprised to see the depth of the villainy assembled for this day. Warn them. If you care about these men, warn them.

Jeffrey Imm writes a lengthy and important article at the Counterterrorism Blog.

The Jihadist ideology embraces death, which is why suicide bombers are such an effective strategy. Indeed it is the only strategy that has allowed a mass-casualty attack by foreigners on the American homeland since the War of 1812. The Jihadist strategy of embracing death negates “Mutually Assured Destruction” tactics, it negates traditional military tactics, it negates traditional diplomatic tactics, and it requires new thinking and strategy based on the reality of the Jihadist ideology.Fighting an enemy whose focus is supernatural and who “loves death” is first and foremost an ideological war. This must be the same ideological war that our law enforcement are led to believe that they have no role in. Traditional warfare tactics will have the same limited results as they would in fighting an enemy army of the undead, as the concept of death itself being a worst case result is not a part of the Jihadist ideology.

America and the West remain in denial regarding the supernatural nature of the enemy’s ideology. Viewing the enemy only as “terrorists” is fighting with blinders on.

The death cult nature of Jihadism and Political Islam makes the ideological battle against them interesting, to say the least. Death cultists such as members of Al Qaeda who seek their evil form of martyrdom have been inoculated against homesickness, brotherly feeling toward their fellow man, and other forms of leverage that might draw them back into the human family. It is possible that the only thing that can be done with them is to kill them before the evil parasites inside their psyches hatch into human bombs.

I do not know the full answer. However, I do know that any form of religious feeling that not only seeks out and sacralizes the death of the worshipper, but also elevates mass human sacrifice of all who are not fellow believers, a perfect example of evil and wickedness, to a good of the religion, is not in any way the worship of a good and kind God and cannot be treated as any sort of religion other than devil worship. The Aztec worship of Huitzilopochtli, the god of the smoking mirror, was wiped out because it was irredeemably wicked. The evidence concerning Jihadism isn’t all in, but initial returns indicate that it is equally evil, and must be excised from the body of humanity.

Responding to a heartfelt essay by Army Girl, I would start by saying that Islamophobia should properly be defined as a “senseless reaction against Islam.” Defined thus, any fact-based objection to Islam is not Islamophobia, but justified concern. Continue reading →